Inter-store trade
The Inter-store trade extension is perfect for professional retailers with multiple stores and one (or even multiple) central warehouse(s).
Let the stores order goods from your central warehouse, or allow for goods directly between shops.
One store's purchase order is another store's sales order. Inter-store trade keeps the two in step, so goods move between your own stores on the same machinery you already use for buying and selling.
What it is for
Most chains buy centrally and sell locally. A central warehouse orders in bulk from real suppliers and holds the stock; the shops basically buys on it as they need it.
Inter-store trade is how that draw works. The shop raises a purchase order against the warehouse, the warehouse gets a sales order for exactly that, and from then on the two are one agreement seen from both ends. When the warehouse ships, the shop already has the goods receipt waiting.
It covers the sideways case too. A customer wants a jacket your shop does not have, and another shop has one arriving Thursday — you can take it off their delivery without either of you leaving the system.
Your central warehouse has to be a store
All of this is store to store, so the warehouse you supply the shops from must exist as a store in Flow Retail that holds its own stock. A warehouse sitting inside another store cannot sell to anyone.
How it fits together
Two shops and a central warehouse, from the warehouse's order with the supplier to a customer collecting the goods.
The three ways goods move
A shop orders from the warehouse
The shop
When the shop sends the purchase order to the supplier
The warehouse sends to a shop
The warehouse
When the warehouse parks or confirms the sale, or is paid for it
A shop takes from another shop's delivery
The selling shop's till
The moment the goods are reserved for the customer
Nothing links until a person says it is ready. Until then a purchase order is an ordinary draft the other store cannot see, and you can build it up and change it freely. That is deliberate: the other end should not be watching an order that grows, shrinks and changes price under its feet.
What it costs the receiving store
Every line that crosses carries a price, and that price becomes the receiving store's cost price — the figure its margin is measured against when it finally sells the goods on. It comes from a price list, or from the purchase the goods are bought on plus a markup.
Prices are never copied between the two orders, and a change on one side never moves the other: a warehouse must not be able to shift a shop's stock value after the fact.
What inter-store trade does to your figures works through the pricing rule, the VAT, and what Flow Retail does and does not settle between the two stores.
What each side can change
Both stores keep editing their own order, and changes reach the other store straight away. Four rules bound it.
A promise to a customer holds. A line can be reduced down to what the receiving store has already reserved for its customers, but never below it. Whoever tries is told which store reserved the goods, on which purchase order, and how many. Ask them to release the reservation first.
Once goods are on their way, the line is frozen. From the moment the sending store sets the delivery to Delivered, that line is locked for them — goods are booked at the other end, and the sender cannot erase them. Credit the sale instead.
Price never crosses. Each side works out its own price when the line is created, and neither can move the other's. See what it does to your figures.
A return flows back, until the goods are received. When the sending store credits a sale and the return is settled, the receiving store's line shrinks or disappears, as long as the goods have not been received. Once they have, the line stands. After a return, neither store can change the line's quantity. See Sell to another store.
What does not cross
The sale at the sending store is an ordinary sales order, so it can carry lines a purchase order cannot. Those stay where they are:
Credits, returns, freight and services
Products that may be sold but not bought
Gift cards, configurable products and dynamic packages
A fixed package behaves differently: the receiving store gets the components, not the package line. The two orders then hold a different number of lines, and that is correct.
Every line that does cross needs a price above zero, components included. A line at zero is stock value the receiving store never agreed to.
Where you do it
Setup happens in Flow Admin. The ordering, selling and receiving happens in Flow Client and Flow Assistant. For Assistant, see Inter-store trade in Assistant.
What's next?
Last updated 13.10.2026
Last updated
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